Mao's Own Application

Mao practiced this himself throughout his life. For example, one of his important discoveries was the people's commune as the best form of production unit for the transition from socialism to communism in the rural areas. The people's commune combines industry, agriculture, animal husbandry and other aspects of economy, as well as the local organs of state power and militia. But the first people's commune was developed spontaneously by China's peasants in order to improve irrigation. When Mao heard about its formation, he travelled to it and investigated it for some days. His investigations convinced him that the people's commune was of general significance for all rural China.

Mao Tsetung's most important contribution to Marxist philosophy is embodied in his work "On Contradiction" In the Marxist view all development in the world, both in nature and society, is the result of the interaction ("Struggle") of opposites which are mutually exclusive but at the same time presuppose each other. The opposites in a contradiction cannot exist without the other. Internal contradictions in processes, whether simple or complex, are its source of development.

Mao's "On Contradiction" examines contradiction from all its aspects, including the temporary unity of opposites, which contradiction is principal and which secondary, antagonism and non-antagonism in contradiction, etc.

The first great Marxist to point out the primacy of the law of unity of opposites, Mao Tsetung's whole thinking was permeated with dialectics. He once said of himself, "Take me, for example, I am not at all more intelligent than others, but I understand dialectics and I know how to use it in analysing problems. If we use dialectics to analyse un unclear problem, the problem becomes clear in a trice. You must study dialectics, its efficacy is very great."

If one looks at his many activities, it is easy to see how his grasp of the law of unity of opposites guides him in his analysis. Unlike previous Marxists, particularly Stalin, Mao Tsetung insists that there are manifold contradictions in socialist society including contradictions, both antagonistic and non-antagonistic, amongst the people, there are contradictions between the interest of the individual and the collective, between the individual and the state and so on.

His viewpoint is summed up in his work "On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People". Of great importance in building socialism is the distinction between contradictions amongst the people and contradictions between the people and the enemy. If these are not correctly handled, for example, contradictions between the people and the enemy being confused with those amongst the people, a great danger is posed for socialism's continued development. In his speech "On the 10 great relationships", Mao Tsetung analysed the 10 fundamental contradictions in China. Following this speech China made its first break with the Soviet model of economic development and began to take her own road.